The present invention relates generally to string-instrument type (string-operating type) electronic musical instruments which are constructed by imitating the construction of natural musical instruments and which electronically generate tones in response to operation of predetermined performance operators provided in correspondence with performance operators of the natural musical instruments. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved string-instrument type (string-operating type) electronic musical instrument which not only allows a human operator of the instrument to view or visually identify performance operators with an enhanced visibility but also allows one or more persons (e.g., audience), viewing the human operator playing the instrument, to view performance operation by the human with an enhanced visibility.
To date, there have been known electronic musical instruments which are constructed by imitating the construction of natural musical instruments and which electronically generate tones in response to operation of predetermined performance operators provided in correspondence with performance operators of the natural musical instruments (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2002-287742). Namely, these electronic musical instruments, which are equipped with a multiplicity of the performance operators operable by the human player similarly to the corresponding natural musical instruments, generate tones in accordance with pitches, tone generation timing, etc. determined on the basis of operation, by the human player, of some of the performance operators. For example, in electronic musical instruments imitating a natural stringed musical instrument, such as a guitar or ukulele, there are provided a plurality of pitch designating operators at predetermined positions corresponding to positions of individual frets on a neck section of the natural stringed musical instrument, and a plurality of tone-generation instructing operators at predetermined positions corresponding to string-plucking or string-operating positions of the natural stringed musical instrument. In the field of these string-operating type electronic musical instruments, it has been known and practiced to sequentially illuminate the pitch designating operators in accordance with a progression of a music piece, in order to provide the human player with a performance guide to indicate each performance operator to be operated and/or in order to visually entertain persons viewing the human player playing the electronic musical instrument.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional electronic musical instruments, only the pitch designating operators provided at the predetermined positions, corresponding to the fret positions, among the multiplicity of performance operators are illuminated; namely, the tone-generation instructing operators are not illuminated at all. Heretofore, it has been conventional to indicate, to the player, timing to operate the tone-generation instructing operators by means of very small light emitting elements provided at positions separate from the instructing operators. Therefore, the tone-generation instructing operators tend to be less visible than the pitch designating operators, and it is very difficult to identify the right timing to operate the predetermined tone-generation instructing operators. Particularly, for a human player playing on a dark stage etc., the tone-generation instructing operators, which are not illuminated unlike the pitch designating operators, are very difficult to visually identify as compared with the pitch designating operators, and thus the human player tends to operate wrong tone generation instructing operators. Besides, because the small-size light emitting elements are difficult to view, there would arise another problem that the human player tends to operate the tone-generation instructing operators at wrong timing.
Further, because only the pitch designating operators are illuminated on the neck section, the performance operation, by the human player, of the tone-generation instructing operators tends to be difficult for the persons, viewing the human player playing the instrument, to view, and thus the performance as a whole tends to be dull and boring from the viewpoint of a visual effect.